Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

The Blueshirt Membership

  • 23-01-2011 11:50pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 320 ✭✭


    Hi, hope someone may be able to help. Does there exist anywhere a database of the names of people who joined The Blueshirts in the 1930s?

    Any info appreciated.
    Tagged:


Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,260 ✭✭✭PatsytheNazi


    The_Banker wrote: »
    Hi, hope someone may be able to help. Does there exist anywhere a database of the names of people who joined The Blueshirts in the 1930s?

    Any info appreciated.
    Interesting. Doubt if you will find too many people who like to talk about maybe a grandfather or uncle in the Blueshirts but best of luck with it anyway.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,041 ✭✭✭who the fug


    Interesting. Doubt if you will find too many people who like to talk about maybe a grandfather or uncle in the Blueshirts but best of luck with it anyway.

    Why Not

    Any that I met, joined to defend against the IRA/FF attacks, and reading between the lines to settle some scores.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,260 ✭✭✭PatsytheNazi


    Why Not

    Any that I met, joined to defend against the IRA/FF attacks, and reading between the lines to settle some scores.
    Well fair enough, I never met one myself, though I knew a guy from Tipperary and he used to sort of chuckle about it when he described his father putting on his blue shirt and heading off to a rally in Tipperary.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    The Blueshirts were described somewhere (can't remember where hence no reference) as "Pudgy farmers in uniform bellowing about cattle prices".

    So what's new?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 588 ✭✭✭R.Dub.Fusilier


    The_Banker wrote: »
    Hi, hope someone may be able to help. Does there exist anywhere a database of the names of people who joined The Blueshirts in the 1930s?

    Any info appreciated.

    this site has a list of members of the Irish Brigade who went to fight in the Spanish Civil War that might help you.

    http://irelandscw.com/top-Contents-OD.htm


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 4,567 ✭✭✭delta_bravo


    Possibly the Garda Museum might help.

    Not sure about this but my uncle was telling me that in the Garda Museum there is a letter sent to the Gardai/Blueshirts from Franco thanking them for their valiant efforts in the Civil War :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 320 ✭✭The_Banker


    Interesting. Doubt if you will find too many people who like to talk about maybe a grandfather or uncle in the Blueshirts but best of luck with it anyway.

    True. I suspect my grandfather was a member but my elderly uncles won't talk about it.
    I know there was a street fight in Cork in the 1930s between Blueshirts and IRA men where 1 or 2 people were killed and again I suspect he was involved but I am meeting a wall of silence in the family.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,488 ✭✭✭Denerick


    It would be incorrect to assume that most blueshirt members were fascists. In reality they were part of a tribe having a day out. I like to think that the Irish have a good sense of the ridiculous and the camp goosestepping fad of the 1930s largely passed us by.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,260 ✭✭✭PatsytheNazi


    Denerick wrote: »
    It would be incorrect to assume that most blueshirt members were fascists. In reality they were part of a tribe having a day out. I like to think that the Irish have a good sense of the ridiculous and the camp goosestepping fad of the 1930s largely passed us by.
    Don't know about that. It could be said that Mussolini's Brown shirts may have started off non threatening enough in 1919 as a sort of ex soldiers society, but soon developed into a very serious bunch of street thugs beating up workers on strike, left wing opponents etc


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,041 ✭✭✭who the fug


    The_Banker wrote: »
    True. I suspect my grandfather was a member but my elderly uncles won't talk about it.
    I know there was a street fight in Cork in the 1930s between Blueshirts and IRA men where 1 or 2 people were killed and again I suspect he was involved but I am meeting a wall of silence in the family.

    Have you got a link for the deaths, though the big disturbance was in Dunmanway and that was more cracked heads than fatalities.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 7,008 ✭✭✭uch


    My Grandfather was one and fought in the Spanish civil war, he also served time as a political prisoner in mountjoy where he spent two years in solitary for running arms, he was on Hunger strike in mountjoy for a while as well, you can find details on the Oireachtas historical website. He was also evacuated at Dunkirk (rowdy Fecker he was), Unfortunately I never met his as he had died before I was born and I can only give second hand accounts.

    21/25



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6 Clio_


    Hi, I wrote my final year thesis on the role of the Blueshirts in the Spanish Civil War. I found the Stradling Collection in ~Special Collections at the University of Limerick very helpful. A list of what is available in this collection id on the UL SPecial Collections website.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,260 ✭✭✭PatsytheNazi


    Interesting picture of Female Blueshirts

    fine-gael-eoin-oduffy.jpg


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,733 ✭✭✭Duckworth_Luas


    The_Banker wrote: »
    I know there was a street fight in Cork in the 1930s between Blueshirts and IRA men where 1 or 2 people were killed and again I suspect he was involved but I am meeting a wall of silence in the family.



  • Registered Users Posts: 320 ✭✭The_Banker



    Excellent link Duckworth_Luas. I knew I heard somewhere from within the family that my grandfather was involved in a fight that resulted in a death.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,443 ✭✭✭InchicoreDude


    Interesting that so many posters think people would deny membership of the blueshirts.

    RTE had an excellent documentary on a few years back about the blueshirts. Before watching that, I also had the fascist viewpoint. But that documentary was eye-opening for me, explaining the tensions that existed in 1930's between FF/IRA & the pro-treaty sides.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    I never know what to make of the Blueshirts.

    Were they fascists or not.

    Their allignment with Fine Gael was probably more to do with the IRA interference with Cummann na Gaedhaels meetings than anything else.

    I did read somewhere that the Young Ireland Association morphed into Fine Gaels youth wing and there was also a womens force.

    My grandfather was a Peace Commisioner and he used to have to go to the Garda Station in the 1930's when they used to get arrested etc. Mostly young guys.

    I always understood that a lot of them went to Spain for the Civil War and that their religious beliefs were important to them.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 588 ✭✭✭R.Dub.Fusilier


    CDfm wrote: »
    I never know what to make of the Blueshirts.

    Were they fascists or not.

    Their allignment with Fine Gael was probably more to do with the IRA interference with Cummann na Gaedhaels meetings than anything else.

    I did read somewhere that the Young Ireland Association morphed into Fine Gaels youth wing and there was also a womens force.

    My grandfather was a Peace Commisioner and he used to have to go to the Garda Station in the 1930's when they used to get arrested etc. Mostly young guys.

    I always understood that a lot of them went to Spain for the Civil War and that their religious beliefs were important to them.

    i wouldn't call them fascists myself although i'm sure members and leaders had that political view. to me it always seemed a civil war thing and former pro-treaty people banding together against their old enemies FF/ Dev/ IRA.

    a lot of those who went to fight in Spain did go to fight for their faith , pure and simple with no thoughts for politics. a good book on the subject is "The Irish And The Spanish civil War" by Robert A Stradling which gives both sides motives for going and has some good info


Advertisement